From 6th - 8th July 2005, the G8 will attempt to hold their annual summit at the luxurious Gleneagles resort in Scotland. As with every recent meeting of the rich and powerful, thousands of people will take to the streets in resistance. Among them will be anarchist communists involved with Anarkismo.net.

Here we are carrying eyewitness reports from the protests, photos and audio interviews. We also provide a number of background articles on the G8, neoliberalism and the summit protests.

The Republic of Ireland has one of the most draconian abortion laws in the world. At present abortion may only be performed where continuation of pregnancy poses a 'real and substantial' risk to a pregnant woman's life - about 5 cases per year of 50,000 pregnancies

The ban on abortion and continued attempts to make all access virtually impossible, approximately 7000 Irish women every year exercise their right to choose abortion and travel to England to access legal abortion there, largely through charities providing abortion services and private clinics.

Photo is from an anti-abortion march at the time of the 'X-case' in the early 1990's

James Connolly is probably the single most important figure in the history of the Irish left. He was an organiser in the IWW in the USA but in Ireland is best known for his role in building the syndicalist phase of Irish union movement and for involving the armed defence body of that union, the Irish Citizens' Army in the 1916 nationalist insurrection. This left a legacy claimed at one time or another not only by all the Irish left parties but also by the nationalists of Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein.

A system of society in which the workshops, factories, docks,
railways, shipyards, &c., shall be owned by the nation, but
administered by the Industrial Unions of the respective industries,
organised as above, seems best calculated to secure the highest form
of industrial efficiency, combined with the greatest amount of
individual freedom from state despotism. Such a system would, we
believe, realise for Ireland the most radiant hopes of all her heroes
and martyrs.

Revolution! seeks to be a starting point for libertarian communist organisation in Southampton and beyond. We reject the idea of a party of professional revolutionaries, or a party in which a small and highly committed elite dominate the discussion and direction of the organisation. This first issue seeks to draw together those who would consider themselves libertarian communists or anarcho-communists and who agree with the ‘basic ideas’. If you are looking for something different from what’s on offer already and fancy the idea of starting something new, then please get in contact and let’s form the basis of a future organisation capable of influencing the struggle.

The announcement that there will be a referendum to decriminalise abortion in Ireland is the product of decades of active campaigning. Pro-choice campaigners built for repeal ever since the hated 8th amendment was entered into the Constitution in 1983, putting a ban on abortion, which was already illegal in the country, into the constitution. If at first this seemed like a distant demand now repeal looks by far the most likely outcome in May. The story of how this happened illustrates how change comes in general. That is not through elections but through people getting organised to demand that change, regardless of which politicians happen to be running the show in any particular year.

On 14th October 2017, Rally for Choice will march through the streets of Belfast. - Last year saw us counter protest the Rally for Life in the North of Ireland, for the first time we marched against their lies instead of our usual static demo. Our counter protest was a huge success, despite being organised at short notice and with only a handful of activists. The protest burst across our streets and convened at Buoy Park afterwards for speakers. We outnumbered the Rally for Life 2016 significantly.

This is the Workers Solidarity Movement position paper on Abortion Rights as collectively agreed at July 2017 WSM National Conference. This position paper sits under the Patriarchy paper which in turn is under the Anarchism, Oppression & Exploitation paper, and hence does not repeat any of that material in these.

Saturday the 30th of September 2017 will go down as a high point in the fight for abortion rights in the Republic of Ireland, and that is a struggle that stretches back decades. Years of campaigning and maintaining a focus on the issue, saw a massive crowd of nearly 30,000 people take to the streets for the annual March for Choice as organised by the Abortion Rights Campaign [ARC]. The calls are for action, and the need for Repeal of the 8th Amendment which bans abortion in almost all circumstances.

The Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland is in full support of the protests in Brussels on the 28th September demanding a guaranteed, free, and accessible access to abortion across Europe. The EU has stood by idly while the bodily autonomy of pregnant people continues to be violated by some member states including Ireland and Malta. It has similarly done nothing while other member states progressively attack reproductive rights based on the political whimsy of the controlling parties of ever-increasing conservative governments. We hope the this mobilisation will demonstrate the united commitment to reproductive freedom for all.

We stand with you in spirit as we prepare for our own mobilisation on the 30th of September for the Dublin March for Choice and it appears almost certain a constitutional referendum to remove the ban on abortion next summer. The text that follows is our position paper on abortion rights agreed by WSM national conference this summer.

The outraged media reaction to a jury doing its job and finding the Jobstown defendants not guilty is quite extraordinary. Rather than do the right thing and launch an investigation as to how 180 cops could produce evidence that was directly contradicted by video evidence, the media have gone on a rant against Twitter! Rather than finding it suspicious that nearly 3 million in public funds was spent by the DPP on a case that any proper check of available evidence should have indicated was never likely to convince a jury, the media suggest instead that the problem lay in the exact charges brought. The trial was part of a large scale state operation to suppress a mass anti-austerity community campaign.

Every year in either Dublin or Belfast the pro and anti choice movements come head to head around the so called ‘Rally for Life’. This year it was Dublin’s unwilling role to play host to the bigot parade. It mattered more years than many as a referendum on the hated 8th Amendment that bans abortion is promised for next year. It could be that the next Dublin bigot parade scheduled for 2019 will come after they have suffered a major defeat.

Six men were on trial accused of falsely imprisoning the then Tanáiste (deputy Prime Minister) and Labour Party TD, Joan Burton, and her colleague in Jobstown, a working class suburb of Dublin, on 15 November 2014. The charge of false imprisonment carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. All six men claimed that they were exercising their right to protest, and that the protest was peaceful. This was part of a mass campaign that successfully defeated the attempt to introduce water charges. Following a nine week trial, the six have been found not guilty.

Corbyn’s strong showing in the June 2017 UK elections has given a big morale boost to the left. A considerable youth vote, self-mobilising in larger part as a reaction to the ‘me and mine’ selfish society revealed by the Brexit vote seriously set back Tory plans for a fresh wave of Brexit required austerity. Activists used social networking to overcome what had previously been seen as an all powerful smear machine of the billionaire print press. Very few outside the radical left expected this outcome, what drove it and more importantly where can it lead?
[ This is a long read so you can also listen to an audio of the text ]
This piece is not going to answer that in terms of assumptions and assertions but as far as possible through hard numbers. 66% of 18-24 year old’s voted Labour, only a quarter of that, 18% voted Tory [p4]. 27% of those 18-24 year olds said the NHS was the most important issue for them, even though they are least likely to need it [p40]. For the over 65 age group this was flipped, only 23% voted Labour and over twice as many (58%) voted Tory [p4]. In fact, given the way the UK election system works, if only 18-24 year olds had voted, Labour would have been heading for 500 seats. If it had only been those over 65 voting the Tories would have had over 400 seats.

Inter city bus workers in Ireland launched widespread secondary pickets at 4am this morning. Solidarity from transport workers at the other services picketed meant that most of the country ground to a halt as morning rush hour approached, almost all trains, Dublin bus and light rail services did not operate. The action is a clear demonstration of the power transport workers hold because of their position in economies.

International Womens Day in Ireland saw thousands take to the streets in a sequence of 'in work time' protests under the heading 'Strike4Repeal'. Abortion is illegal in almost all circumstances and the protests were an attempt by pro-choice activists to forced the government to stop delaying a referendum to repeal the anti-choice 8th Amendment placed in the Irish constitution in 1983. Workers Solidarity Movement members took part in organising the day and in the aftermath produced a number of articles and videos detailing what happened.

Aodhan Ó Ríordáin jets off to the States this week to try and crack America with his unique brand of hypocritical liberalism, trumpeting himself as an anti-racist icon in contrast to Trump’s policies of detention and deportation of undocumented migrants. Tómas Lynch takes a look at his record on the homefront.

The Irish government's attempt to introduce domestic water charges in Ireland is not going well. In fact, for them it's been a disaster because it's sparked off a huge upsurge in working class self organisation and direct action. Saturday saw thousands of anti-water charges campaigners flooding the streets of Dublin o to again voice their opposition to Irish Water & water charges and as a show of strength for the movement.

The Leave / Brexit vote in the referendum came in the end as a surprise, a narrow win for Remain was expected. This may be because the core Leave vote was in the run-down white working class communities of the now desolate English and Welsh industrial zones. A population trapped in conditions of long-term unemployment and poverty who no one really pays much attention to anymore.
Some on the left have seized on the makeup of this core vote to suggest that there was some progressive element to the Brexit vote despite the campaign being led by racist hatemongers and wealthy US-oriented neoliberals. Mostly that’s a mixture of wishful thinking and post hoc justification for having called for a Leave vote in the first place, but it is true that a section of the working class, C2DEs in marketing speak, voted to Leave in close to a 2:1 ratio. Is the class composition of that vote enough to automatically make it progressive regardless of content? And what does it tell us that a section of the radical left seems to think the answer to that question is yes, that it is enough to be anti-establishment?

Observations from anarchist in Ireland on the UK EU membership referendum. The referendum will take place in north east Ireland which is under British rule. Citizens of southern Ireland who live in the UK will also have a vote but because the UK is physically the gateway to Europe from Ireland all of the island will be effected by the result.

Our hearts ache for the victims of the homophobic hate crime that took place over the weekend in Orlando, Florida where a gunman attacked an LGBT+ club killing 50 and wounding over 50 more. Much has been asked by us and by other left queers about the LGBT+ community, whether it exists and if it exists why don’t we feel a part of it. Sadly it is at times like these that we become aware of its existence. When people are considered deviants and deserving of a murderous assault for their sexuality, a trait all of us in the community share, we cannot but come together in sadness and in mourning.

Here are 9 video and audio recordings from the Dublin anarchist bookfair. So whether you were far away or were there but had to miss one session in order to attend another this is your chance to catch up.

Almost a century ago, an armed insurrection took place in Ireland to end British rule and to establish an independent Irish Republic. The 1916 Rising was soon accompanied by major popular revolts against World War One across Europe and later emulated by anti-colonial movements across the Global South.
When it comes to remembering the 1916 Rising, why do conservative politicians and historians want to convince us that it would have been better for us if Pearse and Connolly had stayed at home? Why did the state parade lots of military equipment and personnel down O’Connell Street to mark the centenary? Why did so many people turn out to watch it?
This panel attempts to think through the meaning of 1916 for us today, and the politics at stake in how these events are remembered, forgotten, and mis-remembered.